


Wake Me Up When September Ends

by icequeen57



Series: Reggie's Family [3]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Past Child Abuse, Reggie Gets a Hug, Reggie Has Bad Parents (Julie and The Phantoms), Reggie Needs a Hug (Julie and The Phantoms), Reggie has a Family, Reggie's dad is a dick, Reggie-centric (Julie and The Phantoms)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:33:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27195844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icequeen57/pseuds/icequeen57
Summary: Reggie finds out what happened to his parents.
Relationships: Alex & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie, Alex & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina & Reggie, Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Series: Reggie's Family [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1954711
Comments: 7
Kudos: 321





	Wake Me Up When September Ends

**Author's Note:**

> HI, I'm really sorry. 
> 
> TW:Reggie's dad is a dick

After everything that happened, Reggie was getting restless. It seemed like everyone had a thing but him. Alex kept trying to find Willie, Luke was hanging out with his parents, and Julie spent more time with Flynn. That left Reggie alone with his thoughts. There was a reason he was always moving; it was so he didn’t have to think. His thoughts were not a nice place.

Reggie went into the house, just looking for something to do. It was there he saw Carlos. Carlos was a good kid and a good little brother. Reggie liked him.

Reggie walked past Carlos to see what he was doing. Oh. Reggie wasn’t expecting that.

Carlos had the article about their death pulled up. Ever since Carlos had confronted Julie about the band, and didn’t get any real answers, he had taken to investigating them himself. Reggie leaned down to get a better look. It looked like the one Julie showed them, about the day they died. It said that they were meant to play the Orpheum, and it was dated 25 years ago.

Carlos then clicked on a different ‘tab’ Reggie thinks it was called. A different article about their deaths. This one listed their personal lives, more specially who they were survived by. Alex’s parents and sister Stephine were listed, so were Luke’s parents, but Reggie’s own section was different. It had his parent’s name, with dates listed beside his mother’s. The names were a different color from the rest of the text.

That was weird, the other sections had for information. Apparently, Carlos thought this was weird as well, so he clicked on the off-color names. Reggie wasn’t prepared for what he saw. By clicking on the word, it brought up an article from the LA Times.

“Mary Grahams was killed by her husband September 28, 1996. According to police reports, Mr. Grahams shot his wife Mary when she tried to leave him. Mr. Grahams confessed that the inciting event was the presentation of divorce papers…”

Reggie couldn’t keep reading. Reggie couldn’t process what he had read. His mom was dead. What? Reggie couldn’t breathe. How was this possible? Reggie’s knees started to give out from under him and he found him self flashing away. By the time he realized what was going on he was in the studio, in the loft’s back corner. God, what was happening?

Some small part of Reggie thinks that he should have expected this. The way they fought and the increasing violence, it made sense. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. He loved his mom; she wasn’t always the best mom, but he loved her and now she’s gone. He didn’t have the same chance that Luke had, for someone to tell his mom that he loved her. She was gone.

Reggie sat there for a long time, crying until he couldn’t anymore. Eventually he could hear someone in the studio, but he didn’t care. His mom was dead. Reggie felt something, or rather someone, in front of him. He looked up.

Julie was there, like she always was.

“Carlos told me what he found, I’m sorry Reggie,” she opened her arms and he couldn’t help but fall into her and start crying again.

She was nice to hold, warm. She gave good hugs. They sat there for who knows how long when Julie started talking. “I know this hurts like hell, and I'm sorry you had to find out like that.”

“Oh god Julie I'm sorry I didn’t...” Reggie blubbered out.

She shushed him “Don’t apologize,” her voice was soft and soothing “Not for this, it’s okay to be upset.”

“She’s been dead for over 20 years though,”

“She’s been dead to you for less than a day.” Julie sighed and shifted so her back was against the wall and he was leaning against her. “Do you want me to get the guys?”

Reggie thought about it for a moment “Can you?”

Julie nodded and raised her voice just a tad, “Guys can you come here?” No sooner had she finished two boys appeared and all but collapsed around him.

No one said anything, they just sat together. Reggie was crying, Alex was scratching his back, Luke stroking his hair and Julie humming softly. They stayed like that until Reggie felt like he could breath again. He shifted and looked at his friends, his family. They were the only family he was ever going to need. They were the only family he had left.

Eventually they all got up, the fact that Julie had a physical body was starting to bite her in the ass. The boys popped down to the ground floor and waited as Julie climbed down. As a mass they went to the house. Reggie felt bad for making his friends take care of him, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell them he was fine, like he normally would.

They settled in a puppy pile on Julie’s bed.

Alex was lying down with Reggie on top of him and Reggie’s head resting in the crook of Alex’s neck, Luke on his right with his hand resting on the back of Reggie’s neck, and Julie on the left, her arm resting on Reggie’s lower back. It was nice. Reggie felt safe.

* * *

Eventually Julie fell asleep and Reggie considered it, he had had an emotional day. He didn’t know how Alex had cried for so long without just passing out. Reggie was starting to drift off when Luke spoke softly.

“I’ve never seen him like this,” Oh so Luke wasn’t talking to him. They must have thought he was asleep.

“I know what you mean, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this quiet, or still for that matter.” Alex was stroking his arms now. It felt nice. Reggie shifted, but otherwise remained unresponsive. He liked this feeling, feeling safe, and he was going to keep it as long as he could. Again, he had had an emotional day. 

“He’d of haft to have been quite for a while, up in the loft. I looked all around here, and I couldn’t hear him,” Luke paused “It really freaked me out when we couldn’t find him. I thought…”

“I know what you thought, what if Caleb did something him, or someone else had, I never would have thought of this. Not until Julie told us what Carlos found.” Alex sounded sad, resigned. He moved one hand to the back of Luke’s neck. “I know he wanted to look for his parents, but I hate that this is what he found.”

“I hate that we weren’t there, that he was alone. He doesn’t do well alone. God” Luke moved his head to place his forehead against Reggie’s shoulder. “Reginald why were you alone?”

“You know why, he always does things alone. Getting Reggie to tell us what’s really hurting him is like pulling teeth.” Alex chuckled humorlessly “Do you remember that one night, when we were at the studio, and he came in soaking wet. He ran all the way there in the middle of the thunderstorm. God, he looked like a wet rat.”

“I remember. It took an hour to figure out that his dad tried to break his guitar.”

Oh, it was that time. His dad got drunk again and instead of just fighting with his mom, he decided that Reggie wasn’t allowed to play anymore. His dad made a grab for Reggie’s Bass, saying he was going to snap it in half, and ended up hitting Reggie. When Reggie saw an opening, he made a break for it, taking his guitar and running. Reggie didn’t know where he was going until he burst through the doors of the studio.

Reggie was lost in memories when he heard Luke say, “I also remember the black eye he tried to hide.”

Never say Reggie’s father didn’t have a great right swing.

Reggie had to blink away tears. It hurt to think about his parents. It’s one thing to not know what happened and imagine the worst, it’s a whole other thing to know that his father had killed his mother.

“I remember after we tried to dry him off, he promised that he would never do that to us. Leave us without a bass player, as if that mattered. Like having a bass player was more important than having him.”

Luke smiled “Do you remembered what I said to that?”

Reggie whispered, “You told me you loved me.”

Alex and Luke froze for a second, then held onto Reggie tighter. “Sorry did we wake you?” Alex whispered, like if they spoke any louder the moment would be broken.

“No, you didn’t.”

“We do love you, Reginald. I need you to know that.” Luke had that tone that Reggie had dubbed Luke’s ‘puppy dog’ voice. When Luke sounded so sincere and earnest, and Reggie was weak for that voice.

“I do know that.”

“And you know you can come to us when something happens right?” Alex was running his hands up and down Reggie’s arms again.

“Yeah I know.”

“So, if you get upset you know you can find one of us?”

“Yeah.”

“And you will find one of us, no matter what?”

Reggie didn’t respond. Alex waited. And waited.

Luke got impatient. “Dude, why arn-” Alex cut Luke off.

“Can you tell us why you’re hesitating?” Reggie wanted to tell them, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Alex shot a look at Luke and said in his calmest voice, “Take your time.”

Reggie buried his head in Alex’s chest. “It’s not like it’s that big of a deal. I can get over it just fine on my own.”

Alex and Luke didn’t say anything. That scared Reggie. Why weren’t they saying anything. Reggie could feel the panic start to build in his lungs, like it was hard to breathe.

“Reggie look at me.” Reggie didn’t look at Luke. He did not want to look at Luke. He was not confident in his ability to keep himself together if he looked at Luke. He just wanted to keep his head buried in Alex’s chest. It was safe there, and he didn’t have to deal with his life, well afterlife, there. All there was was darkness. No emotional talks, no having to confront the fact that he upset his friends, and no dead mom. There was only safe darkness. "Reggie.” Fuck. Luke was doing that voice again, and damn did it make Reggie feel things.

Reggie looked at Luke. Luke’s eyes were the same bright green they always were, if a little puffy. “Just because you can do things alone doesn’t mean you have to.”


End file.
